SAM webinar - European Skills Strategy & Gap Drivers in AM, 7th July 2021
About the webinar:
The Sector Skills Strategy in Additive Manufacturing (SAM) project has defined the Skills Strategy Roadmap outlining the complex challenges that the AM sector currently faces, in the form of “Gap drivers” (challenges) between what the industry needs in terms of educational/training offer and what is currently available.
The strategy is placing forward key strategic initiatives and concrete activities to address each of the main seven strategic objectives. Along the webinar three of these strategic objectives were approached.
The view of different stakeholders belonging to fields of education, industry and European policies will be shared.
| The International AM Qualification System | Beatriz Lopez, EWF (Belgium), presented the European AM Skills Strategy Roadmap in terms of gaps drivers and strategic objectives. The presentation set the common understating about the three strategic objectives addressed by the Webinar and highlighted the role of the IAMQS within Skills Strategy. |
| Strengthen the collaboration between industry and training organizations | Bianca Colosimo, POLIMI (Italy) , Mathias Merker, Otto Brenner Schule (Germany), and Elvira Léon, ADDvance (Spain) integrated the discussion panel and gave their contributions on how the collaboration between Education and Industry can be reinforced. |
| Prepare European, National and Regional organizations to tackle the challenges of AM, in terms of Qualified personnel | Margarida Ségard, ISQ Academy (Portugal), presented the challenges faced by VET organisation in qualifying personnel for industry in the current days. ISQ Academy activity as COVE was described in terms of activities, resources and success factors. |
| Leverage on existing funding programs and mechanisms | João Santos, European Commission (Belgium) shared the European perspective on existing policies and tools available for boosting the implementation of training . The main topics addressed by his presentation were existing synergies between skills (Erasmus+), and economic growth; the importance of the collaboration between industries and training providers; and the Funding mechanisms are available to VET and HE. |
Conclusion:
The event gathered mostly representatives from Academia, followed by representatives from VET and Research organisations.
The challenges and solutions required to reinforce the collaboration between industry and education were explored with the valuable contributions of our invited speakers. Some of the key messages from the webinar were that: Skills development is a societal challenges , requiring collaborative and creative approaches.
Within this process, it is important to think global but to act locally, thus identifying the needs, preparing flexible training programmes , capacitating organisations, keeping dialogue and regular monitoring of the actors involved.
The presentations are available here: Presentation I / Presentation II
Here is the full video of the webinar: